Customer Data Leak was Known to T-Mobile as Much as a Year Ago
Troubles for T-Mobile just don’t seem to end. With the latest news that personal details of thousands of mobile-phone customers were sold by employees of T-Mobile to rival companies, comes another news that T mobile had information about the illegal act for more than a year, yet it did nothing to stop the activity.
Last month it was revealed that T-Mobile employees had been selling customer records, including details of when contracts expired, to brokers in the market, who then passed that information on to competitors (rival networks and mobile phone retailers). The rival firms then tried to poach T-mobile customers by making cold calls.
When the breach was made public, T-Mobile customers got angry, and now the news that the company had been aware of the breach for more than a year will put the company once again at the receiving end of the customer’s fury.
An enquiry made under the Freedom of Information Act, which allows the people access to certain undisclosed data held by the government, has led to the release of this information. It was a discovered that T-Mobile first informed the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about the illegal activity as early as 16 December 2008.
Thus, a year has passed since T-mobile came to know about the leak, yet it remained a mute spectator and did nothing to stop the menace.
ICO is now seriously investigating the case and the lapse on part of T-mobile, and is campaigning for violation of data protection law to be punishable with imprisonment.
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